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We will be doing a major renovation to our home with the next year. Right now it's a very simple rectangular ranch home with two bedrooms and one bathroom. By bumping out the front of the house and creating two bedrooms out of what was the living room/dining room and converting an existing bedroom to a master bathroom, we'll end up with a three bedroom two bathroom house. The living room/dining room will be moved to what was an attached garage, which thankfully, was constructed as part of the original home with the same ceiling height as the rest of the house, and a slab sitting nearly 4' lower than the main floor of the house, which is important for a couple of reasons. First, there is no tell-tale break in the roof, second you won't be stepping down into the living/dining room, and third, the floor will be framed as a platform about 36" off of the concrete slab floor of the garage, so there will be plenty of room for insulation underneath.
However, since the front door and porch will be moved over and will cover part of the driveway, there's still a few clues there that it was a garage conversion. Not that I care too much-we are renovating because we want to stay in our home as our family grows-not because we want to sell-it's just an aesthetics thing for me. One thing I plan on doing is cutting away some of the driveway in order to put in a planting bed along the porch. Here is what it will look like-any other ideas?
I know, I know, the windows and doors look pretty drab-I haven't figured out how to make good ones in Sketchup yet
We can roughly guess at the floor plan but what is standing out to me is the distinct possibility that your circulation from the entry to the rest of the house is going to potentially cross (or want to cross) diagonally through the new converted living room, so that is one thing I would be careful about; think of how that room will be furnished. Also the entry jammed up to one outside corner of the house with no real architectural focal point looks awkward to me. With the circulation in mind would it be possible to get that entry better centered in the house over near the projection of the converted bedrooms and to incorporate a bit of a roofed front porch element?- just a California Fill roof. It is very nice to have a covered landing at the front door when standing outside in the weather waiting for someone to open the door or when fumbling with the keys and groceries.
Other than working on the entry sequence; wider, centered and more welcoming stairs- maybe a real front porch, at least partially covered with either a roof or trellis/arbor (make it minimum 6-8' deep) and breaking up the driveway mass somehow it seems like you have a reasonable, if still undeveloped plan.
You may not want to do this - but I highly recommend hiring an architect to plan this all out. They can give you ideas you never imagined and make sure it is economically feasible and structurally sound. Yours is not that complex a project and you could probably find one that is rather affordable. We took a ranch house and ripped off the roof and built a second story - made it into a Garrison Colonial. Best thing we ever did was hire an architect to plan things out so that we had a firm plan and subs knew what their work was. When we sold the buyers got to see the plans and it made it soooo much easier to sell. Think about it...
As T. Damon said, I'd move the front door. Try switching it around with the right window on the garage conversion. This will make better "flow" in the front door. The couch could go either perpendicular to the entryway, creating a "hall" behind the couch, or it could go under or across from the windows. I'd then relocate the porch steps to be in-line with the door.
The piece of fence alongside the house, I'd turn into a nice looking gate, and carry the driveway into there (regardless of if you park there, it'll look like the driveway carries through behind the house. Next, I'd break up the slab. Here's a Google Image search for "grass driveway". There's plenty of ways to do it, from large slab stones to special bricks that give you a paved grid with grass in between. If you don't have many cars to park, I'd narrow the driveway to just the piece along the side of the house, and then have a two car sized bump out in front of the porch (so you'd park perpindicular to the driveway. Pull in and turn right). Hard to tell if that'd work without knowing the distances though, but by loosing the width from the front view, the slab wouldn't look as massive. Line the parking area with planters or shrubs to sort of hide it in plain sight.
EDIT: I drew a picture (hopefully this will upload). Granted, my idea would mean you'd have to do basically a 3 point turn to park and get back out (nose in, back into the little area beside the porch to pull out forwards). It wouldn't bother me but some people are bad at parking.
I've seen listed so many homes that converted their garages for more sq ft. I never get past the fact that there is no garage. 'No garage' is a deal breaker for me and devalues the home considerably.
Be sure you don't kill the value of your home. If most of the houses in your area have garages, you'll be killing your future value.
I've seen listed so many homes that converted their garages for more sq ft. I never get past the fact that there is no garage. 'No garage' is a deal breaker for me and devalues the home considerably.
Be sure you don't kill the value of your home. If most of the houses in your area have garages, you'll be killing your future value.
If he opened the side fence into a gate, he could build a detached garage later on... but the cost to build a garage (slab work, framing, power, etc) would probably barely come close to the hit in market value for having no garage. And like he said, he's not looking to sell, just looking for more room for his growing family, without destroying curb appeal.
But I agree, no garage is a deal breaker for me as well.
Be sure you don't kill the value of your home. If most of the houses in your area have garages, you'll be killing your future value.
Believe it or not, it's the opposite. In a neighborhood of mostly three bedroom two bath homes with no garage, we're the oddball with two bedrooms one bathroom and a garage. Two houses down from us our friends have three bedrooms two baths and their house has the same footprint as ours, it's just configured differently inside. I'd love to have their layout, but it would require moving both the kitchen and existing bathroom which would be too much hassle. Also, I actually spoke with a real estate appraiser who said that for this neighborhood the extra bedroom and bathroom far outweighs the loss of the garage. Finally, that barn in the back will be 16' x 24' (larger than the attached garage was), wil have a concrete slab, electric, two large lofts, etc... I would just need to extend the driveway back there.
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